Since January 2006, Professor Ian Condry has organized the Cool Japan: Media, Culture, Technology Research Project at MIT and Harvard. The project presents colloquia, international conferences, and arts events to examine the cultural connections, dangerous distortions, and critical potential of popular culture. The goal is to encourage scholarly debate, research, and networking in the Boston area for faculty and students interested in media and globalization related to Japan.

The MIT Global France Seminar aims to bring together MIT faculty, instructors, and graduate students from across disciplines interested in the study of French and francophone cultures around the world. The seminar series is free and open to the public.

Bilingual/Bicultural Studies focus on the intersection between the politics of language and culture and the new global realities of the 21st century. The objective of the CB/BS is to examine the history as well as the current ramifications of translingual, transnational, and transcultural phenomena. It is particularly concerned with the impact of crossing linguistic boundaries on patterns of communication, creative practices, identity formation and the cultural politics of the diaspora.